“Um?” I said alertly.
“I said, don’t you think this is cool?” Cary asked, showing me a picture of a bunch of weird little lizards that moved by curling themselves up and rolling along.
“Way cool,” I agreed. “Coolest thing I ever saw.”
Cary looked satisfied. “Not everybody appreciates Escher,” he told me. “Maybe I’ve underestimated you.”
I managed to smile. “Maybe you have,” I said. Maybe everybody had. But when they saw the biography I was going to turn in —
Screeech! Put on the brakes, Kristy.
Turn in? Biography? It hit me like a ton of bricks. There was no way I could write about what I’d just discovered. How could I? I wasn’t supposed to know the things I knew. They were private. Confidential. Cary wouldn’t tell me about them, not in a million years. And — I remembered the way Ben had clammed up — nobody else in his family was going to either. Which meant I had to act as if I’d never read those words. Sometimes I still regret the things I did that got me kicked out of school….
Aaughh!
Here I was, sitting on the biggest secret in SMS history, and I had to keep it to myself.
“Something wrong, Kristy?” Cary was giving me a strange look.
I glanced down and noticed that my fists were clenched tight. Had I groaned out loud?
I shook out my hands. “Not a thing,” I said. “Not a thing.”
“You’re acting kind of weird,” Cary remarked. “But maybe that’s normal for you. I guess I’ll find out more when I interview your family.” He raised the eyebrow.
“Could be,” I said. Suddenly I didn’t have the energy for any more banter.
Cary gave me a closer look. “No, you really are acting weird. What’s up?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, resisting a powerful urge to look at his desk. I had to get out of that room before I gave myself away. “Um, I’m just a little distracted by all the other homework I have to do. I think I should head home.”
“If you say so.” Cary shrugged. He closed the Escher book and stood up to replace it on his shelf.
“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t know exactly what I was apologizing for. Maybe it was for reading his private journal and learning his innermost secrets. Or maybe it was just for leaving early.
“No problem,” said Cary. He looked a little bewildered. “So, then, we’ll go to your house next time?”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Sure. How’s Thursday?”
“Works for me, I think.” Cary walked to his desk as if he was going to check his schedule. I held my breath. Would he notice that his journal was lying out in plain sight? Would he guess that I had seen it, read those incredible few sentences?
If he did, he didn’t show it. He just made a little note on his calendar and turned away from his desk.
I let out my breath. “Okay, then,” I said.
“Okay,” he echoed.
“So, I’ll see you.”
“Not if I see you first,” Cary replied, sounding more like himself.
“Right,” I said, inching my way out the door. “ ’Bye!” I ran down the stairs. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to leave that house. I blasted past Ben and Stieg, who were coming out of the kitchen, grabbed my backpack, and fled out the front door.
I walked home quickly, thinking hard. What a ridiculous situation! How had this happened? I didn’t even want to know the things I knew. On the other hand, as long as I knew them, I sure would like to be able to write about them. But I couldn’t write about them, because I wasn’t supposed to know about them. Cary didn’t know I knew, and if he found out, he might go berserk. Maybe he’d try to hack into my own computer. He might be capable of anything.
It wasn’t easy to act casual at dinner that evening, but I did my best. I think Watson noticed something was up when I passed him the ketchup. “I asked for the salt,” he commented, giving me a puzzled look. “But thanks anyway.”
I don’t know what we talked about over our hamburgers and salad, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t contribute anything too meaningful. Afterward, I helped clear the table, then left Sam and Charlie to the dishes, since it was their turn. I took the portable phone into my room and dialed Mary Anne’s number.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” I said. “I, um, had some ideas about my Christmas party. Do you think it would be too much to decorate the punch bowl with lights?”
I didn’t really have any interest in talking about my party — not at the moment, anyway. I had other things on my mind. But how could I bring up the real issue?
Finally, I presented it as a hypothetical case. “Mary Anne,” I blurted out, interrupting her, “what if you accidentally found out something private about someone? Something that person didn’t want you to know? Do you tell him you know?”
Good old Mary Anne didn’t seem fazed by my sudden switch in subjects. “Depends,” she said. “Do you have a reason for saying something? Or could you maybe forget the thing you found out?”
“Forget it?” I asked slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“In that case, honesty is probably the best policy.”
Mary Anne is usually right about these things. But I wasn’t convinced. Honesty may be the best policy where most people are concerned, but I was dealing with Cary Retlin. And Cary Retlin is definitely not like “most people.”
The next day I spent the morning avoiding Cary. I had the feeling seeing him at school was going to be awkward after what I’d read in his journal. How could I face him?
For everybody else, it was an ordinary Wednesday. For me, it was something else. I was the only person at SMS who knew that we had a criminal in our midst. As I walked around the halls, I reflected on how I would feel if I were booted from our school. I mean, it’s not my favorite place in the universe. Maybe I’d want to celebrate if I were told to go somewhere else.
But I didn’t think so.
I’d miss it. I would miss the front hall, with its display cases full of trophies. I would miss the main bulletin board, all covered in notices and posters. I’d miss the auditorium, my locker, and yes, even the cafeteria.
After all, I’d spent an awful lot of time in that building over the last few years. In a way, it was like another home to me.
Yikes. If any of my friends had known what I was thinking, they’d have thought I had gone nuts. And maybe I had. I felt tense and stressed out, like a cat on its way to the vet.
Mary Anne noticed. (Mary Anne always notices things like that.) “Are you okay?” she asked when we were at our lockers between classes.
“Sure.” I gave her a false smile just as the bell rang.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. I hadn’t fooled her for a minute.
My next class was English. It was time to face Cary. I ran into him around the corner from my locker. “H-hi!” I said brightly.
“Hello to you,” he said in an amused tone. “Feeling all right?”
“Feeling excellent. And you?”
“Fine, thanks.” I think he noticed that I was a little nervous around him. Especially when I almost walked into the door of our classroom.
“It’s customary to open the door,” Cary said, grinning at me as he reached for the doorknob.
He lost his grin as soon as he looked inside. I followed his glance.
Mr. Taylor, our principal, was standing at Ted’s desk.
And Ted was nowhere to be seen.
Immediately I forgot about my problems with Cary.
“This isn’t good,” Cary muttered. “It’s not good at all.”
We took our seats.
The second bell rang, and the last kids trickled in and sat down. Then Mr. Taylor began to speak.
“Good morning,” he said. He was twisting his hands together and sort of squinting.
“Good morning,” we chorused.
He took a breath. “You may notice that your regular teacher, Mr. Morley, is not here today,” he said.
“Oh, really?
” said Alan Gray.
Mr. Taylor gave him a Look and continued. “Mr. Morley is going to be taking some time off while the administration of this school investigates the charges being leveled against him.”
Now Mr. Taylor sounded as if he were reciting a speech he’d memorized. I wondered if he’d said the same thing to all of Ted’s classes. And I wondered if the kids in every class had stared at him in shock the way the ones in my class had.
Mr. Taylor was looking toward a back corner of the room. Merrie Dow was in the front. I could tell he was trying hard not to look at her while he talked. But every kid in the class was looking at her.
“This is most likely a temporary measure,” Mr. Taylor added hurriedly. “We hope to avoid too much disruption to your learning cycle here in English class.” He stopped twisting his hands and shoved them into his pockets. Then he cleared his throat. “Any questions?” he asked.
My hand shot up. He gave me a slight nod. “Are you telling us that Ted was suspended just for handing out a list of books?” I asked.
Mr. Taylor looked taken aback. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “I suppose you could put it that way. Mr. Morley has indeed been suspended, pending investigation. And the book list he gave you is part of the reason.”
“Part?” asked Cary. He hadn’t bothered to raise his hand. “What do you mean, ‘part’?”
Mr. Taylor sighed. “Let me explain,” he said. “The content of the list — the books that are on it — is only part of the problem. The other part is that Mr. Morley apparently neglected to have his list approved by the head of the English department. That’s standard procedure in this school.”
Alan Gray was waving his hand. “But that’s not fair,” he cried. “Ted came here all of a sudden, to fill in for Mrs. Simon. He might not have known about that rule.”
“Be that as it may,” said Mr. Taylor, “the rule does exist.”
Cary’s hand shot up. Mr. Taylor glanced at him. I could tell he would rather not call on Cary, but he didn’t have much choice. He’d asked for questions, after all. He nodded at Cary.
“What do you think about the situation?” Cary asked.
Mr. Taylor took a step backward. “What I think is only part of the picture,” he declared after a pause. He frowned and looked into the back corner of the classroom again. “I will say that I believe Mr. Morley meant no harm. He is a respected teacher, and this matter will receive a fair hearing. I fully intend to make sure of that.”
Cary turned around in his seat and glanced at me. I could tell by his look that he was thinking the same thing I was: Mr. Taylor was not very happy about what had happened. There must have been tremendous pressure to suspend Ted.
Mr. Taylor wasn’t the only adult at SMS who was unhappy about Ted’s suspension. After class, as I walked to my locker, I could see little groups of teachers in the halls. They were talking quietly among themselves, but not quietly enough. I heard whispers of “ridiculous,” “scary — it could be me next,” and “what about the First Amendment?”
That last remark caught my interest. I’d learned about the Constitution in seventh grade, but I couldn’t remember exactly what the First Amendment said. During study hall, I went to the library to check it out.
Mr. Counts, the librarian, was only too happy to help me. First he showed me where to find a copy of the Constitution so I could read the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law,” it says, “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“It’s the part about freedom of speech and of the press you’ll find most interesting,” Mr. Counts said. “That is, if you’re wondering about Mr. Morley’s rights.”
“I am,” I told him.
“You may find this interesting too.” Mr. Counts pulled a book out of a stack on his desk. “This is the most recent Resource Guide for banned books. It’s put out every year by the American Library Association.”
He handed me the oversized book, and I flipped through it. There was a list of every book banned or challenged in the past year, as well as a long list of books titled “Some People Consider These Books Dangerous.” That list included all the books that have been banned or challenged over the years, from 387 B.C. to the present!
“Some of those books have been burned,” Mr. Counts said. “Others have been taken off library shelves or attacked publicly by people who wanted to keep them from going on the shelves in the first place.”
“Wow,” was all I could say. “There are a lot of familiar titles on this list.” Some of them were on the list Ted had given us, including both books I was thinking about reading. And I remembered some of them from the last time I was exposed to book-banners: To Kill a Mockingbird, A Light in the Attic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the list went on and on, naming books I never would have thought of as “dangerous” in any way. “In the Night Kitchen?” I cried. “How could anybody have a problem with that?” It’s a great picture book, right up there with Goodnight Moon.
“You probably don’t even remember,” Mr. Counts told me, smiling a little. “But in some of the pictures, the little boy is naked.”
“Oh, please,” I said. I continued to leaf through the book.
“I can’t lend you this copy,” said Mr. Counts. “But if you’d like to borrow last year’s edition I’d be glad to check it out for you.”
I didn’t have to ask where Mr. Counts stood on the Ted Morley question. It was clear that he thought the suspension was wrong.
I didn’t know anybody who thought it was right. When we talked about it at the BSC meeting that afternoon we all agreed (even Stacey and Claudia agreed, for once) that the suspension was way out of line. And at dinner that night my mom and Watson made it clear that they supported Mr. Morley all the way.
“I’m going to write a letter to the newspaper,” my mom declared. “Somebody has to take a stand against this garbage.” She showed me a letter in that day’s paper — a letter from Bertha Dow. In it, Mrs. Dow claimed that Mr. Morley was a “corrupting influence on the youth of Stoneybrook,” and that the “trash” he was promoting as appropriate reading was going to drive us to “immorality.”
Watson was angry too. “I’m going to call the school tomorrow,” he said.
Ordinarily, I might have been embarrassed if my parents had made a public fuss. But in this case, I was all for it. As my mom said, “Sometimes you have to be loud to defend what you believe in.”
I only hoped I could do something to help.
“What a day!” Cary leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
We were on our way to my house after school on Thursday. Cary was sitting next to me on the school bus, in the spot usually taken by my friend Abby. She calls our bus the Wheeze Wagon, because it sounds as if it’s taking its last breath. I was waiting for Cary to make some snide remark about that, but he didn’t.
Maybe he was just too tired to be clever or sarcastic. I couldn’t blame him. I felt wrung out myself. It had been a long, long day at school. The news about Ted’s suspension was all anyone could talk about, and the rumor mill was working overtime.
“Did you hear about that group of parents who went to see Mr. Taylor?” I asked. Apparently Mrs. Dow and a few other “concerned parents” had paid Mr. Taylor a visit.
“Hear about them?” Cary raised an eyebrow. “I heard them. It was hard not to. They were yelling at the tops of their lungs when I walked by the office.”
I wondered if Watson had called the school yet. I made a mental note to ask him to inform Mr. Taylor that Mrs. Dow did not represent the majority of SMS parents.
I shook my head. “I wonder how this is all going to end,” I said. “What a mess.”
Cary agreed. “It’s a big waste of time. And it could foul up Ted’s record forever. It might even cost him a job sometime.”
It was on my Cary Retlin record, though. I couldn’t forget about it. I’d blocked my computer with a stack of books that morning, knowing he’d be coming to my house after school.
I was also a little nervous about Cary’s interviews with my family. Not that I had anything to hide. I was just hoping against hope that nobody he talked to would volunteer any especially embarrassing stories about me. I didn’t need Cary — let alone everyone in school — knowing about some dumb thing I’d done when I was seven.
I had mentioned the interviews to Watson and my siblings, who would be home that afternoon. (Watson works at home a lot.) In the spirit of fairness, I had tried not to coach them too much. But I had made sure to remind them about some of my better moments, in hopes they’d mention those events to Cary.
I’d spent some time reminiscing with David Michael about all the great times we’d had together while I was coaching him in softball.
I’d reminded Watson about some of my community-building projects, like the BSC’s work with the residents at Stoneybrook Manor, the local retirement home.
Sam and Charlie would talk (I hoped) about my accomplishments as BSC president, including some of my best fund-raising ideas.
And I was just trusting that Karen and Andrew would be their usual talkative selves, and that they’d want to boast about me generally, since they’re proud of their older stepsister.
I had done what I could do. The rest was up to my family. When Cary wrote my biography, would I come out looking like a champ — or a chump? I’d have to wait and see.
This was the first time Cary had visited my house, and as we walked to the front door I could see that he was impressed. “Nice place, Your Highness,” he said. “Are the palace guards on a break?”
Kristy Power! Page 4
